The pattern you see my Chelly doll holding up in the image above was the first doll clothes pattern I can remember sewing. It was given to me by my grandmother, along with a sewing lesson. Both this pattern and my grandmother’s sewing lesson, combined with a single year of my childhood spent in solitude, transformed me into the doll clothes designer I am today.
When I was in fifth grade, my parents divorced, and at the start of my sixth grade year, I moved to Lodi, California, to live with my father, far away from my grandparents who lived in Washington state, and who had been instrumental in my upbringing prior to that point.
Grandma Souders was an incredible seamstress! She had made all four of her daughters’ clothes, and she made a point to teach each of her daughters how to sew properly. But my mom had moved out, so who would teach me?
Before I left for California, Grandma sat with me in her living room and gave me a thorough sewing lesson. I made Dress View 1 from Simplicity 4883, and it’s designed to fit a vintage Tammy doll. So knowing that I only owned Barbie dolls (not Tammy dolls), Grandma showed me how to alter the side darts for the View 1 dress so the pattern would fit a Barbie.
You and I both owe this woman a great big gallon of gratitude because if it hadn’t been for that day, when I sat on her 1970’s floral sofa, learning to sew and alter a pattern, I would never have been able to create this website with all of its free patterns.
She made sure that I understood the nature of darts, notches, seam allowances, hems, ruffles, and more, and as a parting gift, she gave me this Simplicity 4883 sewing pattern for Tammy. She may have apologized that it wasn’t an official Barbie pattern, but it was a pattern she already owned and she wanted to make sure I had a real doll clothes sewing pattern before I moved far away from her.
I think she even told me something like, “When you’re lonely, when you’re sad, or when you’re just bored… sew! The more you practice, the better you’ll get.”
In the coming year, the fact that this pattern required alterations forced me to learn how to make adjustments to these Tammy patterns. I lived with my dad and brother — Mom and her new boyfriend lived in Seattle — so I had no one in Lodi, California to answer the questions I had as I sewed each and every outfit offered in this pattern.
My only friend at my new school in Lodi was a black girl named Cherry — she pronounced it like the fruit although she may have spelled it differently — who I will never forget for her kindness and her warm friendship. Had I lived closer to Cherry, I might have been able to ask her mom to help me with my sewing projects, but as part of the desegregation busing laws, Cherry rode a school bus from inner-city Sacramento out to suburban Lodi every day.
So we never had any play days after school or on weekends. With no family around and no friends in my neighborhood, I had to entertain myself. My weekends and after school time were filled with sewing. I was getting too old to really enjoy playing with my toys like I had in my younger childhood, but sewing for my dolls became my outlet for creative expression.
And I didn’t own a sewing machine, so I had to sew each pattern by hand. With lots of practice, my hand stitching got better and better, and I became more meticulous about how and where I stitched.
They say necessity is the mother of invention, and boy oh boy did I get inventive! I made and re-made each item of clothing in the Simplicity 4883 sewing pattern, each time altering the pattern just a little bit more. By the end of my sixth grade year, I was designing my own doll clothes patterns for Barbie.
Can you even believe that? By the age of twelve, I could design my own patterns from scratch! That’s how much of an impact my grandmother made, just by giving me one lesson in pattern alteration, by giving me this single pattern for Tammy dolls, and by teaching me how to alter it to fit Barbie.
Wow. Just wow. That’s one heck of a gift to give a child.
My mom and dad got back together when I was in junior high, and with Mom in our house again, I was given the opportunity to buy new and different doll clothes sewing patterns. But that year I’d spent just sewing on my own — that year I’d lived in Lodi, California, far away from any family members — had changed me forever.
After that, I found it hard to just follow a doll clothes sewing pattern as it had been drawn by the original designer. That early lesson in pattern alteration had set me on a path of design and alteration that would make me the doll clothing designer I am today.
Thank you, Grandma Souders! Now that you’re in Heaven with the angels, I hope you know what a tremendous gift you gave me, not just in the Simplicity 4883 sewing pattern for Tammy dolls, but in the gift of teaching me how to alter a pattern. God BLESS you!
To this day, I’m also grateful to little Cherry, my only friend in sixth grade. It’s hard to make friends when you’re new at school, and since she was struggling with the same problem — overshadowed by the fact that she was the only black girl in our sixth grade class — we found solace in each other’s companionship, just by having someone to play with on the playground and someone to sit by in the lunchroom.
If you’re out there somewhere, reading this, dear Cherry, please know that I often think of you with prayers of gratitude and good wishes. 🙏
Okay, my faithful followers, now it’s your turn… Who taught you to sew? And what do you remember about the lesson? Please leave a memory of your first sewing lessons in the comment area below.